


the rest of you, the best of you.

by mokketake



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Pining, Season 5 Spoilers, Spoilers, TMA spoilers, Tender - Freeform, jonmartin, mag 161, massive massive spoilers, this is a tender cabin fic, tma s5 spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-25
Updated: 2020-04-25
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:34:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23832445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mokketake/pseuds/mokketake
Summary: an assortment of statements, origin unknown, detailing the fears and frets of jonathan sims. origin, date, and time of recordings are indiscernible.(presumably occurs somewhere between episodes 161 and 162).
Relationships: Martin Blackwood & Jonathan Sims, Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims
Comments: 3
Kudos: 86





	the rest of you, the best of you.

“Jon… You’re trembling.” Martin wraps the fragile man in his arms. 

“Martin… Martin, it’s three in the morning. Go to sleep, please.” Jon manages to choke out, his voice strained. He sounds like he’s choking back tears, but Martin’s never known Jon to be one to cry. 

“No,” Martin says, firmly. He’s learned to be assertive, he hasn’t had much of a choice, but he doesn’t want to hurt Jon any further. He knows Jon’s aching. He can see it--and while it hurts, he knows it’s not quite a pain. It’s a _weight_. It’s a burden beyond anything Martin could even begin to comprehend, the pressure of trillions of words and numbers all connected by the shimmering, delicate string of fate; knowledge that wormed around Jon’s brain, crawling between the cells of his skin, embedding itself in the scars the pocketed his ruined skin. It’s the weight that Martin was taught, as a child, that only God could carry. 

And Jon was no God. He had said so himself. He was a man, barely thirty, who had somehow landed a wretched job at a dingy institute, where he had convinced himself that he was more likely to die of dust allergies than the paranormal… 

And now look at him. 

Martin just sits there and holds Jon. It’s the least he can do. It pains him that he can’t do anything else, that he can’t shoulder the burden, that he can’t help the man he’s loved for so long in the very least, even after everything was said and done. He couldn’t solve the equations the buzzed around in Jon’s head like swarms of flies, and, for all his valiant attempts, he couldn’t string the words that thrashed around Jon’s consciousness into light, symmetrical verbiage. And worst of all, he didn’t know what to do right now, as the shadows of eyes pierced the air around Jon, and the window outside shone with a sickly green glow on one side, the other an unsettling mockery of what once was moonlight emanating from the Panopticon. He didn’t know what to say, or ask, and even if he did, Jon was never obligated to answer.

“I… I know,” Jon says, ceasing to shudder and convulse for just a moment. “It’s okay,” he looks up at Martin, his eyes like unending wells of knowledge and fatigue, glowing slightly, pockmarked with gold throughout them, little marks like constellations that hadn’t been there before. 

“God…” Martin breathes out, enchanted and pained.

“There isn’t one of those anymore,” Jon may have laughed, but through his pain, it was more of a suppressed cough. 

“I--I know, Jon, I’m sorry, I really am, I--I want to help you--” Jon’s hand reaches up to Martin’s cheek, and Martin realizes he was so busy watching tears well up in Jon’s eyes that he hadn’t realized the steady stream flowing down his own face. “Why don’t… Why don’t you give me your statement, for once? Then, you can ask me everything you need. Feast ‘till you’re fed.” Martin cracks a smile, if only to try and reassure Jon. “I know you don’t need it anymore, but I’ll make us some tea.” 

Jon manages a crooked smile, like the muscles of his face are being weighed down by the entirety of the seven seas. 

Jon isn’t shaking anymore. 

\---

Martin returns with two mugs--one peppermint, steeped three minutes, no sugar, and one ginger, two sugars, with the tea bag still in the water. No milk. Not right now. 

Jon is sitting with his back propped against the head of the bedpost, buried in one of Martin’s sweaters, an obnoxiously large, worn-down green garment. His hands are wrapped around his knees, and to Martin, he looks like a young child, scared, helpless… But without the innocent naivete. Martin hands him the mug with the ginger tea, the sharp scent cutting through his senses, grounding him just a bit. He sits, cross-legged, and he knows, and Jon knows, and all he can do is wait until Jon’s ready. 

He’s waited all these years, what’s a bit more?

\---

Jon takes a deep breath. 

“Are you sure you want this, Martin?”

“Y--yes, Jon, I want to know. I want to _help_ you.”

Jon exhales, shaking his head, and he seems almost amused, his expression an odd amalgamation of impatient, confused, tired, and surprised. The same he’d looked when he’d found himself saying the words _I love you_. It had caught him off guard just as much as it had Martin--he hadn’t planned it, he hadn’t been thinking when he’d spoken, but he knew, the moment he’d said the words, that it was true. It was as true, as real as the Panopticon standing menacingly in the distance, laughing silently at their tragic attempts to fix themselves when the world was in shambles. 

“Thank you.” He inhales, almost too forcefully, the aroma of ginger mingled with mint and the remnants of sleep and body odor and rot and moss and petrichor filling his lungs. He knows, suddenly, that he doesn’t really need to breathe. But he wants to. So badly. He’s not ready to let go of the lingering bits of humanity. His mind is a mess. The universe is suddenly one massive equation, tasks and letters crashing against the corners of his mind, tearing and stretching the boundaries of his comprehension and abilities. His mind is a mess, and when he starts to speak, so are the words that flow out of his mouth, crashing like bullets of rain onto a tin roof. 

“I--I’m not human anymore, Martin. I don’t need to eat. I don’t need to sleep. I don’t think I need to breathe. I--I don’t think I can _die_ ,” Jon shudders. “I don’t want to live forever. Not in this world, not where everything is so fucked up, not where it’s my fault…”

It hits Martin, then, that the weight Jon has on him is the weight of guilt. And it is infinitely heavier than that of knowledge. Jon only needs to look at him to know. 

“The Institute, Sasha, Tim, even Leitner and Peter… Martin, when I was running from the Archives, I was running because I was convinced people thought I was a murderer. Now I am one, and I don’t even feel remorse for it, not in the least. I don’t think I _can_.” Jon holds his mug up to his mouth. He doesn’t drink. He wants to, though, but he doesn’t think he can hold it in. He doesn’t know if he’ll ever be able to be. “And--not just one person. Not just Peter. No. Millions. _Trillions_ of people, Martin, they’re--if they’re not dead, they’re even worse off. Because of me.”

“No,” Martin looks at Jon, and a gentle smile finds its way onto his face.

“No, Martin, don’t look at me like that, like you think I’m _good_ \--”

“Jon. Jon, it’s not your fault. Well, not directly, but--look. This is Elias--Jonah’s doing. And we’re going to stop it. Both of us.” He takes a shaky breath. “You may not be human. You may not be of this world, not anymore. But you’re here. And I want to be here with you. All the way.”

“Martin… I don’t---I--” Jon starts shaking again, and Martin puts both of their mugs aside, shifting himself to hold Jon protectively. “I want to tell you to run. I want to tell you to curl up with your arms on your neck, and to close your eyes, and that this’ll all be over soon. That if this is hell, there is a heaven waiting for you. But I--I want to protect you, Martin. I _love_ you--”

“And that makes you feel human,” Martin whispers. It’s his turn to know.

“Yes.”

Neither of them says a word for a long time after that. 

Outside, the sun doesn’t rise. The wind keeps howling as Martin holds Jon in his arms, close and tight, running his fingers through Jon’s long, unkempt hair, reminding himself that they’re both real. The eyes keep opening, tearing grotesque holes in the smooth, green-tinged sky, peering, seeing all, like beams of bitter sunlight rupturing the blanket of fog settled upon the Earth permanently. The flies keep buzzing, always just out of sight, and the gunshots keep blowing, mines popping, bodies hit the floor; fires destroy forests, people marry and divorce and babies are born and doors open and stairs roll out, spiraling through unending neighborhoods of personal hells, and above everything, the Panopticon towers, gleefully absorbing the chaos of a planet reborn.

Jon sees it all. He knows it all. The door opened months ago, and it’s not closing any time soon. Maybe ever. He knows the architecture of every plagued neighborhood, the mapping of every trench, the path every river takes, the spaces between trees in rotting orchards, the amount of time until the fires inevitably consume them, too. He knows, and yet there is so much he does not know. He does not know of Melanie and Georgie. He does not know of Tim and Sasha, and though he knows there are no Gods, there never have been, he prays that they are happy. He does not know if Daisy will live, but he prays for her, too. He would like to be her friend when this is over, he decides. He does not know of Gerard and Eric Delano, of the Admiral (the thought makes him smile through his labored breathing). He does not know of Gertrude Robinson, or Jonah Magnus, or the shell of the man who was once Elias Bouchard. He does not know the intricacies of the Panopticon, at least not the important ones. But there is one thing he does not know, one thing he will not _let_ himself know, he will not let himself look or ask for, despite the incessant tug of his heart, despite the ache to hear three words from one voice, despite how _easy_ it would be. He could only hope that he would hear the words he so deeply craved when the time was right.

“Martin,” Jon pulls back eventually, after what could have been minutes, hours, or even days. He looks at Martin, at the reddish-blonde mess of curls that framed his face perfectly, one streak of grey flowing down the left of his head, at the freckles that marked his skin like scars marked Jon’s own. He looks into Martin’s faded gray eyes, empty from his time in the lonely, almost to the point of being unreadable. He looks into the eyes of the _man he loves_ , desperately grappling for anything to hold onto as the world crumbles around him, now sobbing fully, his breaths deep and arrhythmic, the tears flowing heavy. 

“I’m scared.”

Martin wipes Jon’s tears; a Sisyphean task--but that doesn’t matter, not when Jon sees a vague shadow of the sea of emotion that once thundered in Martin’s eyes, when they were brown and syrupy sweet. 

“I know.”

Martin brings his forehead to Jon’s, and Jon doesn’t have to wait any longer.

_“I love you.”_

**Author's Note:**

> hope you enjoyed!! this was a Lot of fun and i wanna do more small writing projects like these, they're just easier on the attention span :) please leave a comment if you are so inclined, i would love to hear opinions!!!


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